Gita 13.30 The soul is not the doer of the activities impelled by the body

Transcript

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Thank you Prakriti is the doer Krishna is saying it’s 13.30 kriyamanan sarvasya ha you need everything yah pashyati, one who sees this katha atmanam akartaram and when you see the soul to be the non-doer it’s a person, it’s a pashyati it’s a person actually sees so the stress here is in seeing who is the actual seer yah pashyati it’s a pashyati one who sees this is actually the seer so what is going on here to say that material nature is the doer and the soul is not the doer praktyavaca karmani kriyamanani sarvasya ha material nature does everything and the soul does nothing now if you consider the overall bhagavad-gita certainly the soul is considered to be the doer for example it’s stated that soul is the doer and soul is meant to do so Krishna tells Arjuna as you desire so you do and Krishna replies by saying Arjuna replies by saying that I will do your will so the idea that we are not doers at all is not sustainable if we look at the overall context of the gita which was encouraged which encouraged Arjuna to do something to in this case in the context of his Kshatriya duty in the second chapter Krishna says that as far as the swadharma is concerned for Arjuna to go and to fight so now if you look at this from the practical perspective certainly we are doers and we are meant to do the bhagavad-gita encourages us to act according to dharma there are similar sounding verses elsewhere in the gita also which can help us to understand what is going on here the most well known verse which has a similar theme is 3.25 ahamkara vimudhatmaka taham iti manyate so it says that when material nature is the doer the soul who thinks oneself to be the doer that soul is deluded by ego and that soul is simply deluded that’s with respect to conception the conception to think that I am the doer is considered to be ignorance and later on in the 18th chapter Krishna says in 18.60 he says that all living beings are bound by their swabhava and by their swabhava they are obliged to act in particular ways even if they are out of moha, out of illusion say that we will not do particular things still they will end up doing those things because we cannot be without action and we will act according to our nature there the word is swabhava here the word is prakriti it is prakriti which does all activities one who sees this and sees the atma is a non-doer that person actually sees so there is apparent vision and there is apparent perception and there is actual reality so for example we may see that a person is going, sneaking into a house at night with a gun in their hands and we think this person is a murderer who is going inside to try to kill some and the reality may well be that that person is a police officer and that they are going in because they have got reports that there is somebody who is there is some thief who has already penetrated there and they want to catch that thief red handed or at least stop that thief from stealing and in order not to scare the thief or provoke the thief they are sneaking in going in as soundlessly as possible so things are not always the way they appear to be and one of the fundamental Upanishadic themes is that actually the reality is beyond what is perceivable by our senses so by our senses when we see things first of all we see with our senses and we see that others are doing things with their senses so for example we may see that so and so is talking so and so is eating so and so is walking so and so is fighting all these things we think are done by the senses and the problem could be that while doing these things with one’s senses one may think that that is all that there is to it but the body obliges us to do certain things for example we all communicate now all living beings communicate at some level or the other and say a dog will communicate through barking a bird will communicate through chirping even human beings will communicate in their own natural way they may use languages at one level languages are far more sophisticated forms of communication than other modes of communication that might be there in the world in non-human species by the same time even we will communicate in the languages that are natural for us so a person born in Tamil Nadu may speak Tamil and whatever emotions are there in their heart they may not even consciously choose but they will speak in that language and conversely a person who is in born in say some part of Arabia might speak in Arabic language as a reflex action so there is much that happens in the body which is below our conscious choosing we may choose to speak but how we speak the language which we speak or we could say for some people who are who know a few languages the languages in which they speak they are determined by the body mind set up that they have and the body mind set up is made of Prakriti nature so rather than seeing things in a fragmented way by ascribing the responsibility of actions to people alone and not see any higher reality beyond that so nature does not do that also so for example when a mosquito bites a human being we may dry the mosquito away or we may kill the mosquito or we may create nets so that the mosquito doesn’t come in but whatever we do the mosquito is simply to its nature and the mosquito will not get karma when it seeks to satisfy its belly by biting someone the soul is for most cases the observer and just depending on whichever body the soul is in the body is impelled to act in particular ways and the soul simply goes along for the ride of course the soul can choose and that maximizing the scope of the capacity for choice of the soul is the essence of spiritual growth so the body will have a particular kind of reflex action, default action or reflex reaction and the soul who is undiscerning will automatically go along with that action souls who are discerning will also not necessarily be able to give the action but they will be able to act in more discerning ways so the urge to speak is unavoidable in most cases but what to speak that can be more carefully chosen so to say that everything is done by material nature does not mean that the soul has nothing to do with it the atma is not the doer that means that the atma is not acting at the material level in this world say when we are speaking something so it is the body with its appropriate bodily senses that is speaking the soul can be the impeller of that but the executor is material nature and we are mistaken when we take credit for the execution so for example if someone sings beautifully and the person takes credit that I am the singer, I am such a great singer that can well be a mistake because actually they had the desire to sing and they may have put in effort practice also but it is the body which is executing it and thus they cannot deny the role of the body and 13.30 here states that to the extent we see this holistic reality and we see that the soul is in a sense carried along by the body for a ride a ride that is not always pleasant when we understand that the soul is thus shackled then we truly see yaha pashyati sa pashyati